First Summit Session

The first session of the Summit was tonight, the session on Evangelism, and the whole summit is talking in the context of "What have we done? How has it worked? What do we need to do differently?

The schedule was re-arranged somewhat. Arthur Blessitt opened things up with entheusiasm, and Chuck Girard (of the band Love Song) followed up with a wonderfully candid conversation. Trevor represented the "alternative people": goths, punks, hardcores, ravers, metalheads, "retro-hippies", the "global nomadic youth" movement. He emphasized that we've focused on friendship evangelism, and now we only have Christian friends. His emphasis was that we need to rely on prophetic evangelism, or Spirit-led evangelism, or intentional "divine appointments."

It's interesting that we acknowledge the need for the power of God to bring anyone out of darkness into light, but we often overlook signs and wonders - what John Wimber used to call Power Evangelism - to bring the message of hope. Jesus certainly did! Just almost every time He taught the Word, he also healed someone (or many) or cast out a demon or six or something.

That concept was echoed by Cindy McGill who uses healing and prophecy at her Burning Man outreaches (I love her model!) and Matt Sorger who has tremendous success emphasizing the glory of God's presence. Preaching the knowledge of salvation worked for my generation; it does not work for the current one.

This Evangelism session ended with the main speakers praying for and imparting to those among us that feel called to a ministry of evangelism, and those prayed for the rest of the congregation.

Thanks for your prayers for impartation, for clear direction, for Trevor's health, encouragement, and for his speaking.

Oh yeah: I put a bunch of links in the last post: connections to many of the key people and groups; but I forgot the link for Promised Land Fellowship that's sponsoring all this. It's here. They're cool people!